Money as the Key to Happiness - Essay Example

Apart from it is essential, it also takes the form of joy. One who has it more than the basic requirement finds it a pleasure to have it. Money not only buys the necessities of life but also has the power of fulfilling one's deepest desires. But not everyone is fortunate enough to have the 'pennies from heaven. In fact, some can't even meet their basic needs. This is mainly because of the inequalities that have prevailed in our societies. The unequal distribution of income, which has a vital role to play in this regard, is directly affected by the prevailing socio-political and economic conditions within the country. C.W.

Mills, in his book The Sociological Imagination, has emphasized the aspect of raising the level of overall country's prosperity. This, as he proposed, is achievable by making efforts to reach a full employment condition by balancing all the variables in such a way that everything gets settled in an equilibrium state. Some also argue that money isn't the actual aspect of bringing happiness to one's life. They say that having money to a greater extent might be the ultimate source of pleasure; however, it is to a certain limit.

This limit though varies from person to person, but after reaching this point the utility becomes nil. This demonstrates an important aspect I.e. money brings well-being and actually well-being is the actual source of happiness. To reach a certain level of well-being, only a certain amount of money might be enough, except for those who merely live for the greed of having more and more. Even several types of research conducted and studies performed have yielded these results i.e. the people who have pursued having more and more money actually end up working late hours.

Such people are going after extrinsic goals i.e. name and fame and often undergo depression, anxiety, and dissatisfaction. On the contrary, people who are after the intrinsic goals such as having a healthy social circle are actually better off. Many times, when asked, only a few people respond that they are dissatisfied. This should lead to the conclusion that the ones who form the major part of the population should be happy. This is however not the case. Because when asked about happiness even fewer responded positively.

Others were either in between or had a near-to-negative reply. This clearly means that not only s the extent of happiness is subjective, but also there are other social aspects/variables that impact the level of happiness in one's life.